Luke Griffin is the vocalist of rapidly rising death metal outfit Acrania who released their debut EP, The Beginning Of The End, a few months ago and was met with with massive critical acclaim – available here.
Total Deathcore: Hi Luke, thanks for agreeing to this. First of all, I have to say, The Beginning Of The End is an absolute masterpiece, and I know others think the same. Do you feel the hard work put into this EP has paid off?
Luke: Hey, no problem, it’s my pleasure. Total Deathcore have given us a lot of support and we really appreciate it, so I’m happy to be doing an interview for you guys. Thanks a lot for the props on our debut EP… We’ve been really pleased with the response it’s had from the fans and from the death metal scene as a whole. We are still a relatively new band and although we have all been a part of similar projects in the past, what with Jack playing in various projects and myself and our drummer Jake performing in death metal band Hideous Miscreation. And before that Deathcore band, Thrown To Belial… Acrania only really started out properly as a band last July. So we definitely feel that the hard work we put into the EP has paid off, on the most part through the amazing response we have had from the fans.
When writing The Beginning Of The End we aimed to create something new and somewhat unique to the death metal genre. I know that this is something that all bands probably aspire to, but that was very much our goal with the EP. And, of course, to find our sound and move on to define it further as we progress into the realms of the debut album.
Total Deathcore: What inspired the artwork and song titles on the EP?
Luke: I felt that lyrical themes in death metal were for the most part very played out… They mostly tended to aim at degrading women for the sheer jokes of it, or talk about some vague dark themes. Not that there’s anything wrong with this, it’s all fictional and I doubt vocalists in bands like this actually want to cut off girl’s tits and piss on them whilst yelling that they’re a dirty whore… haha. Or maybe a few of them really do have some serious hate issues towards their ex girlfriends, haha! But who knows.
Anyway, when writing lyrics and choosing song titles for Acrania… I mainly focused on the notion of waking people up to the wrongs of the world. The world is seriously fucked up right now, and if we carry on this way we’re heading for nothing but idiocy and destruction. Too many people just go through life with very selfish and close minded goals… To get a job, get money, get a house, get a car and family and then have everyone else just leave them alone. They ignore the bigger picture of humanity as a whole and the fact that most of the world is suffering. World leaders perpetuate this notion, because as long as we’re here at the bottom scraping by and working hard just to survive, they’re off being rich cunts at the top and reaping the benefits. It’s a fact that 1% of the population is extremely rich and the other 99% of us are at the poor end of the spectrum. It’s a fact that our money supply is controlled by a private business, by a cartel of banker families, the same as almost all of our resources. It’s a fact that if you took the 10 richest people in the world’s income for just one year, we could solve the world’s poverty and starvation problems. But instead, we play video games, watch mindless television and spend 8 hours a day doing for the most part meaningless jobs. I don’t want to be a preacher, but are we really going to carry on as mindless slaves to these greedy banker bastards?
So these facts, along with the many systems of control forced upon us by warped creations like religion and politics, as well as the very real force of greed, are very much the inspiration for the song titles and lyrical content on the EP. This prompted fans to label us as ‘Politicore’ …which we find pretty cool. You can expect more lyrical content of this sort on our debut album, ‘Totalitarian Dystopia’. The artwork for the EP very much revolved around the lyrical themes. In a nutshell, Acrania’s message is basically just: “Look around you and stop being a selfish cunt!” …haha!
Total Deathcore: Your vocal range has been one of the most talked about aspects of this EP. How long has it taken to train your voice to this level, and what advice would you give to aspiring vocalists?
Luke: Thanks a lot, it’s fucking awesome to be getting so many positive comments on my vocals. I’ve been doing vocals for around 8-9 years now. I started out at 17-18 years old and now I’m 25 turning 26 next month. I first started out screaming along to bands like old Underoath, Killswitch and some others I probably won’t mention due to embarrassment, haha! But my love for brutal vocals quickly brought me on to heavier and heavier music… Until I found myself imitating other bands such as Suicide Silence, All Shall Perish, Job For A Cowboy, Despised Icon, Whitechapel, Psycroptic and loads more. As you can tell, it was very much the era of the pig squeal… Which may explain my use of the squeal, haha!
This may come as a surprise, haha… But when I first tried to scream… I couldn’t do it for shit! I even remember giving up at one point and thinking to myself, “This is pointless, it must be something some people are just born able to do”. So, if you want to learn to do vocals, you can learn.
Once I worked out how to scream, I decided that doing vocals was what I wanted to be good at, and I made it my mission to practice at absolutely every chance I got. And by every chance, I mean every chance… haha! This resulted in a lot of people thinking I was quite strange, but I always thought to myself, fuck them… One day I’ll get somewhere with this.
At this point, I started putting vocal covers online and was picked up by the guys in Thrown To Belial. At first, I could only squeal and make guttural noises inwards… although I soon realised that inward vocals were extremely limited/unpredictable and what’s more, my fast paced vocal style combined with the human brain’s need for oxygen ensured some painful-as-fuck headaches on stage. Because of this, I made it my mission to learn everything I could do inwards… outwards. Including the squeals and the inward sounding gutturals.
During the Thrown To Belial days my voice wasn’t as durable and I was still new(ish) to the vocal game. I remember I did a lot of worrying about my voice at this stage, about hurting my throat or vocal chords…. Although as time went on throughout the Thrown To Belial and into the Hideous Miscreation days, this became less and less of an issue, to the point where my throat seems to have became somewhat invincible… I can try and hurt it, and it won’t hurt.
Something else weird that seems to have happened to me is that I haven’t had a sore throat in about 3 years, no joke (touch wood)! We need a doctor or something to explain this, or maybe you guys should ask some other vocalists the same question. Also, ask them if they’ve had their tonsils out. I always wonder how much of a role having/not having tonsils plays in death metal vocals. I have no tonsils.
I feel that playing and performing in Acrania has improved my vocals a lot. I became more proficient in the guttural department… I had never fully experimented with the guttural end of the spectrum until Acrania… In Hideous, I used gutturals, only they were not as varied as the ones I have now discovered. Through Acrania I’ve realised that you can perform a whole scale in gutturals… haha. But I have a whole load of new sounds coming your way for the album. I’m also working on the high screams, attempting to make them even higher and even more evil sounding.
The only advice I would give to aspiring vocalists is that with enough practice, I’m pretty sure that anyone can do it. And the key is to just keep on practicing and practicing and practicing. I’ve played with the idea of doing some vocal tutorials over the net, so add me up on Facebook if you’re interested… Just search ‘Luke Griffin Vocals’ and give it a like.
Total Deathcore: When the EP came out and Acrania got featured on huge webzines, I know you guys got put onto loads of shows and tours.
Was the monumental boom in popularity difficult to handle?
Luke: Hahaha, it wasn’t really difficult as such… As it was welcomed with open arms. I have been trying to get somewhere in metal music for about 7 years now, so to finally get recognition and have our music and message heard by many was a great feeling. And what’s more, to find ourselves touring with sick bands that I myself had spent years listening to, such as Cerebral Bore, was a huge privilege… Especially seeing as we were offered to support them as Acrania’s first tour. So there I was, at a show I would gladly pay to see, every night for 10 days. Haha! And there’s more of this to come as we set off on tour with death metal giants Aborted in August. Hopefully some of you can make it to a show, keep an eye on our Facebook for locations/dates.
Total Deathcore: Which band, or bands, introduced you and other band members to heavier subgenres like brutal death metal?
Luke: Hmmm, that’s a hard question as there are so many… For me it would have to be a mixture, and with so many genres and mixes of genres in metal right now they may not all be brutal death. But for me it would be bands like Hour Of Penance, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Cerebral Bore, Job For A Cowboy, Ingested, Gorotted, Cattle Decapitation, Deeds Of Flesh, Dying Fetus, The Faceless, Black Dahlia, Necrophagist, Aborted, Psycroptic, Devourment, Justin Bieber and loads, loads more.
Total Deathcore: Do you disagree with the way metal subgenres like deathcore and death metal are evolving and changing?
Luke: Yes, definitely and completely. Music is supposed to change and progress with the times… You get all these elitist metalheads being all like ‘you should be more like Slayer or Morbid Angel’ or whatever. It’s like, no… We’re not aiming to create something that sounds like metal music from 10 years back, we are aiming to create something fresh and new. And as of late, death metal has progressed vastly… As we see a constant progression vocally and musically.
Sure, this has amounted to A LOT of subgenres, some of which may be slightly unnecessary… But people need a way to distinguish the things they like in music. And although it causes arguments over what genre certain bands actually play in, it’s all part of the progression and a way for people to find bands with the qualities they prefer.
Total Deathcore: With so much lyrical content in modern death subgenres about murder and torture, do you feel there needs to be some more variation lyrically?
Luke: Yes, definitely, I kind of answered this one when I was talking about song titles. I feel that it has become a somewhat dated characteristic that death metal must be themed around death… The genre has come a long way and developed many of its own traits, aside from lyrical themes revolving around death. A death metal band can still be death metal, without adhering to the standard lyrics about death cliche. This has become more relevant as of late, what with Acrania being dubbed as ‘Politicore’ and a whole load of bands also getting on the political themes lately.
At the moment, world leaders are being attacked musically from all corners… We have political Grime, Rap, HipHop, Death Metal, Deathcore etc. etc. It’s good to see that our generation is doing what it can to make a change, from all corners of music. Also, bands like The Faceless, Deeds Of Flesh and Rings Of Saturn have done a great job in shifting the lyrical themes into the extra-terrestrial/space vibe.
Total Deathcore: Who do you feel is the most influential band on the scene right now?
Luke: That’s a very hard question… I get influenced by lots of different bands and genres. Although if I had to say one I would say Cattle Decapitation’s latest album is influential as fuck. In the realms of slam, Abominable Putridity takes the crown for influence. And Deeds Of Flesh take the top spot for speed vocals, haha.
Total Deathcore: Which band was the most fun to play or tour with and why? Any strange tour stories?
Luke: The tour with Cerebral Bore, Warpath and Cemtex was epic and will always be remembered as Acrania’s first real tour. I was originally really disappointed at their vocalist Som parting ways with Cerebral before the tour, as I am a big fan of her vocal style. Although upon meeting the man filling her shoes, Shawn Whitaker, I was pleasantly surprised. Not only way he the nicest guy ever, but he was a sick vocalist and frontman.
During this tour we played 2 dates in Holland and got to have a day off in Amsterdam… So, naturally, we set out to get as stoned as we could. We wanted to see if it was possible to get too stoned, as me and our drummer Jake enjoy a smoke. Haha! We set out hitting up all of the best coffee shops and sampling all of the strongest stuff we could, munching space cakes and drinking hash hot chocolates as we went… Needless to say, we got incredibly high. This resulted in us grabbing some magic truffles from a shop (yes I can talk about this, because in the location we were in… they are legal, haha.) Me and Jake proceeded to eat the bag, and we ended up tripping balls.
This was all fine, until we stayed up real late and got hardly any sleep… Then found out that we were actually playing during the day that day, not the night, leaving little time for recovery! The next thing I knew, it was time for us to play in Rotterdam. I went in for my first long scream during the intro to our set and BLAM… My head exploded. Not literally, but it felt like it had exploded. I was in so much pain, I think it was some kind of tension headache. Anyway, what was I to do… I just powered through it ignoring the pain as much as I could, head banging and screaming as normal.
This resulted in me having to sit in the tour van for a good 2 hours clutching my head in pain after the show. So, kids… If you’re a brutal death metal vocalist on the 9th day of a 10 day tour and you’ve already been drinking every night, DO NOT TAKE MAGIC TRUFFLES HOURS BEFORE YOUR LAST SHOW! Haha!
Another pretty funny story: our ex bassist, Sam, had his first ever bong hit. We convinced him that the Travelodge were after us because we had stolen so much stuff from hotel rooms, hotel rooms that were all registered to his card and name. He was so stoned that he freaked out and started crying, it was some seriously funny shit. Especially when we told him that it was on The Guardian new’s website.
Total Deathcore: Death metal is constantly rising in popularity, and it can only get better. Where do you see Acrania, and you, going in the future?
Luke: Of course, I hope that we can keep moving forward as a band and progressing musically whilst increasing our fan base… Who knows what kind of vocals I’ll be doing come the 3rd album though, haha!
But in the near future though, we hope to bring the slam to Australia, the States and many other places.
Total Deathcore: Thanks Luke – it’s been a pleasure.
Luke: Thanks for the interview guys, sorry I blabbered on loads! Haha! Big shouts to all of the guys at Total Deathcore and everyone who checks out their page. And also to all the people waking up and banging their heads to Acrania. Safe!
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